In the Spider-Man comics, Janice Lincoln, a.k.a. "The Beetle" is a formidable threat to New York and its arachnid protector. She's a member of the Sinister Six, a group of Spider-Man's most infamous adversaries, and founder of the Syndicate, a league of criminal superwomen. In Magic: the Gathering, however, Beetle, Legacy Criminal has been done dirty. She's a bulk common, a forgettable flyer, and an unremarkable card in a deeply unpopular MTG set. More than a week after the release of Marvel's Spider-Man, The Beetle possesses the dubious dishonor of only having a single Commander deck registered under her online.
That's according to the community deck listings on EDHREC, an online Magic: the Gathering resource that scans other deckbuilding sites like Moxfield and Archideckt and outputs stats about the popularity of different commanders. Going by their stats, at press time, only one deck has been built with Beetle, Legacy Criminal in the Command Zone.
To put that into context: the site's most popular commander, The Ur Dragon, currently has 39,505 fan uploaded decklists to its name. Sauron, the Dark Lord - another entry in our own list of the top MTG commanders - leads 28,716 decks on the site.
As a 3/3 flyer for four mana, with an effect that only activates from the graveyard, it's not difficult to see why so few people are building around the Beetle. Not only that, but in order to use this card's effect, it needs to be exiled from the Graveyard.
This will slot Janice Lincoln back into the Command Zone, but lathers on an extra helping of Commander Tax. By exiling the Beetle, another creature gains a +1/+1 counter and flying until the end of the turn. It's a helpful effect, but not even close to being worth the trouble it takes to get going.
Beetle, Legacy Criminal can be a useful legendary creature to include in the other 99 cards of your Commander deck. Blue is a color that can benefit from "self-mill", dumping your own deck into the graveyard to gain rewards.
By including The Beetle in the deck of a commander like Emry, Lurker of the Loch she can go directly from the library into the graveyard, rather than needing to pass through the Command Zone and the battlefield first.
The Beetle is far from alone, of course. Many legendaries from MTG Spider-Man are just as unpopular as the set itself. According to EDHREC stats, Ezekiel Sims, Spider-Totem only leads two decks; there are just three people who have built around Starling, Aerial Ally; and Grendel, Spawn of Knull is only in charge of four decks, despite being a giant, evil dragon!
What's your view? Do you see untapped potential in The Beetle? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community.
And, while you're at it, if you haven't seen the huge news about next year's upcoming Magic releases, check out our fully updated MTG release schedule. There's a LOT to look forward to…